Paris syndrome (French: Syndrome de Paris) is a transient psychological disorder encountered by some people, in most cases from Japan, visiting or vacationing in Paris, France. It is similar in nature to Jerusalem syndrome and Stendhal syndrome.
Japanese visitors are observed to be especially susceptible.[1][2] It was first noted in Nervure, the French journal of psychiatry in 2004.[3] From the estimated six million yearly visitors, the number of reported cases is significant: according to an administrator at the Japanese embassy in France, around twenty Japanese tourists a year are affected by the syndrome.[4] The susceptilibity of Japanese people may be linked to the popularity of Paris in Japanese culture, notably the idealized image of Paris prevalent in Japanese advertising, which does not correspond to reality.
Mario Renoux, the president of the Franco-Japonaise Medical Association, states in Libération's article "Des Japonais entre mal du pays et mal de Paris" (December 13, 2004) that [Japanese] magazines are primarily responsible for creating this syndrome. Renoux indicates that Japanese media, magazines in particular, often depict Paris as a place where most people on the street look like stick-thin models and most women dress in high-fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton, while in reality French high-fashion brands are mainly for foreign consumers, and the French population are far more overweight than the Japanese population.
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Paris Syndrome is characterized by a number of psychiatric symptoms such as acute delusional states, hallucinations, feelings of persecution (perceptions of being a victim of prejudice, aggression, or hostility from others), derealization, depersonalization, anxiety, and also psychosomatic manifestations such as dizziness, tachycardia, sweating, etc.[5]
In fact, the observed clinical picture is quite variable, but it has the characteristic of occurring during trips which confront travellers with things they have not previously experienced and had not anticipated. Principal to the diagnosis is that the experienced symptoms did not exist before the trip and disappear following a return to the sufferer's familiar surroundings. This differs from a 'pathological voyage', in which psychiatric disorders are pre-existing.
The authors of the journal cite the following matters as factors that combine to induce the phenomenon:
Professor Hiroaki Ota, a Japanese psychiatrist working in France, is credited as the first person to diagnose the condition in 1986.[1] However, later work by Youcef Mahmoudia, physician with the hospital Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, indicates that Paris Syndrome is "a manifestation of psychopathology related to the voyage, rather than a syndrome of the traveller."[6] He theorized that the excitement resulting from visiting Paris causes the heart to accelerate, causing giddiness and shortness of breath, which results in hallucinations in the manner similar to the Stendhal syndrome described by Italian psychologist Graziella Magherini in her book La sindrome di Stendhal.[7]
Viala, A.; H. Ota, M.N. Vacheron, P. Martin, and F. Caroli (2004). "Les Japonais en voyage pathologique à Paris : un modèle original de prise en charge transculturelle". Neuvure de journal Psychiatrie 5: 31–34. http://www.nervure-psy.com/pages_revue/nervure%20juin2004.pdf. Retrieved November 4, 2009.